Well that was a sh*t start to the new year. 

The f**king world can see the  the opposition getting ready to score except our players on the pitch.

Kante needs to drop back instead of bounding all over the pitch when the momentum starts slipping away from us especially during the last 20 mins or so. 

We need a new game plan. We're just gifting it  away now. 

 

 

Just now, charierre said:

On the pitch leadership Scott, we lack voices.

Rudiger was shouting at the players multiple times throughout today. It was like he was screaming at the team to wake up, none of them responded though. We just look so lethargic in the winter months, no other team seems to do this as often as we do. It's been going on years now. Even when we buy new players, this same problem never seems to go away. It makes me think there is something wrong with the mentality of the club.

1 minute ago, Slojo said:

Ahh the vendetta argument, well you're in the minority there then, because Kante was not good today at all, I agree that he wasn't the worst on the pitch but his distribution and even defensive play was lacklustre. He offered nothing on the pitch today, yeah Kovacic had a stinker, probably the worst I've seen him play, gave away needless fouls, but the tempo of the game was already set, the way we played was predictable. 

I though Kante was not good yet was ok, always being available and carrying the ball.

Kovacic was poor, CHO was quiet yet could have taken the points with a better finish.

James did well alongside Kepa.

The important thing is we play sexy samba football unlike under terrible Sarri and we also beat Spurs and Arsenal who are not in turmoil. 

I think CHO needs to go on loan he is still far from the finished article and isn’t good enough for us yet.

8 minutes ago, Stas1 said:

 

Looks like many people on this forum are more tactically savvy than Lamps.

 

What a load of bollocks that is. 

The whole team was sloppy. Passing was absolute dire not just Jorginho. 2 simple, square passes and we could've ended it at 3-0.

Our forwards were sloppy whilst trying to flaunt nonsensical flicks. Kepa is the only person who saved their face. James was good in the first half but was targeted in the 2nd half

Too average in attack again! I don’t think teams fear Tammy, Pulisic or Willian, we need to invest in a top quality striker. Just my opinion.

1 minute ago, Slojo said:

Ahh the vendetta argument, well you're in the minority there then, because Kante was not good today at all, I agree that he wasn't the worst on the pitch but his distribution and even defensive play was lacklustre. He offered nothing on the pitch today, yeah Kovacic had a stinker, probably the worst I've seen him play, gave away needless fouls, but the tempo of the game was already set, the way we played was predictable. 

He wasn't great on the ball, but his defensive work again was without parallel. I'm with @loz on this, without him we'd have lost for sure. 

Chief challenge that I'm sure we can both agree on is we're simply way to open without the ball. Kante on that right hand side was covering massive ground to come out and press and then having to get back as well. 

Frank is currently feeling the pain that Sarri felt this time last season. Teams have looked at the video and worked out the way to beat us is sit deep when we have the ball and then use our disorganised press against us to open up space. In the same way as we went back to a narrow more compact defence under Sarri after the City debacle we are going to have to do the same again to make the top four. Just a question of how long it takes us to work it out.

9 minutes ago, Stas1 said:

Lampard is breaking all kinds of records. Every time I hear before the game something like "This team has not beaten Chelsea in 20 years", you can surely bet we will lose.

 

 

 

Sad, but very true.

3 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Rudiger was shouting at the players multiple times throughout today. It was like he was screaming at the team to wake up, none of them responded though. We just look so lethargic in the winter months, no other team seems to do this as often as we do. It's been going on years now. Even when we buy new players, this same problem never seems to go away. It makes me think there is something wrong with the mentality of the club.

Totally agree. Every season this happens. One always blamed the Brazilians lol. But maybe it's not just them!

Our decision making today was the difference between having a good lead by half time and the draw we got.

Our basic passing was of a mid table championship team today.

 

Mount was dreadful too today if we’re being honest for a number 10 it feels like he creates next to nothing and we’re all just so great full for his pressing. Funny that we all scratched our heads when Oscar made the team ahead of mata for his work rate. You have to realise we play 4 attackers : Abraham,Mount, Willian and Pulisic/CHO

 

Abraham is class imo 

Mount is offering nothing but pressing

Willian is Willian and has one good game in 4 

Pulisic is so frustrating because he gets in good positions but his finishing and passing is so inconsistent 

 

and then there’s CHO that offers literally nothing can’t even get into the positions Pulisic can. 
 

so we have one decent attacker out of the four we play, I’d go big on Isco and Sancho, keep mount but sell CHO. 

 

 

9 minutes ago, doctorblue said:

Frank again made the wrong selections...Kante and Jorinho is just so bad...Willian should have been dropped and where's our LB? Dave isn't a WB left or right...time for Frank to shape up...

I'm not saying any of this is wrong. But surely the game play and possible coaching has to be questioned. The decision making was woeful today. Throughout. How early was it in the game when at 1-0 Abraham streaks into the box and rather than laying off to an unmarked and overlapping Willian 8 yards from goal, decides to shoot through the legs of three defenders, which clips one of them and clears the bar.

Yes, formations, tactics and substitutions are pivotal. But the coaching, the game management and the on pitch attitude of the players has to be questioned here as well. Regardless of their age. For me we remain one of the worst set piece teams in this division. And we cannot keep saying every bloody game is a learning experience, because it is becomign evidetn tha these lessons are not beign learned.

2 minutes ago, Spiller86 said:

He wasn't great on the ball, but his defensive work again was without parallel. I'm with @loz on this, without him we'd have lost for sure. 

Chief challenge that I'm sure we can both agree on is we're simply way to open without the ball. Kante on that right hand side was covering massive ground to come out and press and then having to get back as well. 

Frank is currently feeling the pain that Sarri felt this time last season. Teams have looked at the video and worked out the way to beat us is sit deep when we have the ball and then use our disorganised press against us to open up space. In the same way as we went back to a narrow more compact defence under Sarri after the City debacle we are going to have to do the same again to make the top four. Just a question of how long it takes us to work it out.

Yeah without him we would never have been 3rd place with a 9 point gap off 5th, oh wait... 

We created enough opportunities to have been comfortably in the lead, only for players to make poor choices, I'm not sure how you blame that on the coaches. Pulisic, Mount, Abraham and CHO all had brain farts when we had overloads against the defence on breaks, that's where we lost the win, and it shows the tactics we're right and working. 

Just now, Slojo said:

Yeah without him we would never have been 3rd place with a 9 point gap off 5th, oh wait... 

Kante all of a sudden sprinting at there left back every game and then we lose the ball and have one CM trying to defend a counter attack is getting old fast too. That’s why we look so much better with Kovacic and Jorginho because they don’t just decide to leg it into the corner flag for no reason or at the wrong time 

20 minutes ago, loz said:

The CHO change I couldn't understand. I thought that was a mistake. Could understand Kovacic for Mount. Lampard can't be blamed for the fact Kovacic was dreadful from the moment he came on.

1 1 probably slightly more than we deserved.

765 posts having a go at Kante today but I'd wager we would have lost today without Kante playing. Jorginho offers very little when we see under pressure and was largely invisible once Brighton got on top. He did nearly gift a goal with a very sloppy pass but bizarrely nobody on here noticed that. Must have all been on the kitchen with Val at that point!

No, we would have lost today if it wasn't for the keeper. I don't know how anybody can watch that performance from Kante and say that if it wasn't for him, we would have lost. He was awful, possibly our worst player on the pitch today.

He was being outmuscled, his touch was poor, his passing in attacking areas was poor, he was leaving holes for them to run into, his tackling was poor, he was weak, his decision making in defence and attack was poor, he was running all over the place like a headless chicken and easy to pass through. He wasn't putting pressure on players at the right time, he was just running at them and making it easy for them to play a simple pass. I couldn't think of a single thing Kante did right today. His form has been terrible since his return from injury, he doesn't look anywhere near as good as he used to be. I didn't think he was anything special last season in this role, he looks even worse now.

Edited January 1, 20206 yr by Scott Harris

2 minutes ago, I Am Gay 4 Diegod said:

Mount was dreadful too today if we’re being honest for a number 10 it feels like he creates next to nothing and we’re all just so great full for his pressing. Funny that we all scratched our heads when Oscar made the team ahead of mata for his work rate. You have to realise we play 4 attackers : Abraham,Mount, Willian and Pulisic/CHO

 

Abraham is class imo 

Mount is offering nothing but pressing

Willian is Willian and has one good game in 4 

Pulisic is so frustrating because he gets in good positions but his finishing and passing is so inconsistent 

 

and then there’s CHO that offers literally nothing can’t even get into the positions Pulisic can. 
 

so we have one decent attacker out of the four we play, I’d go big on Isco and Sancho, keep mount but sell CHO. 

 

 

We all know that the only player we will be signing is Zaha , would Liverpool or City buy him ? 

so yet again we fall behind those teams, we never learn

1 minute ago, dkw said:

We created enough opportunities to have been comfortably in the lead, only for players to make poor choices, I'm not sure how you blame that on the coaches. Pulisic, Mount, Abraham and CHO all had brain farts when we had overloads against the defence on breaks, that's where we lost the win, and it shows the tactics we're right and working. 

 I'll agree with the first part dkw. The defensive issues because of the high pressing though are costing us points. Been happening all year. Tonight the goal came from a freak incident but bar Kepa (who was made two great saves) we could have conceded two more in the last 5.

9 minutes ago, Spiller86 said:

 Kante on that right hand side was covering massive ground to come out and press and then having to get back as well. 

 

This is the weird part for me. We have Willian, Kante and James on the right yet Kante has to cover so much ground?

On the left we essentially have Pulisic/CHO alone as Azpi sits deeper than James but they don't really cover as much ground as the guys on the right.

 

1 minute ago, Scott Harris said:

No, we would have lost today if it wasn't for the keeper. I don't know how anybody can watch that performance from Kante and say that if it wasn't for him, we would have lost. He was awful, possibly our worst player on the pitch today.

He was being outmuscled, his touch was poor, his passing in attacking areas was poor, he was leaving holes for them to run into, his tackling was poor, he was weak, his decision making in defence and attack was poor, he was running all over the place like a headless chicken and easy to pass through. I couldn't think of a single thing Kante did right today. His form has been terrible since his return from injury, he doesn't look anywhere near as good as he used to be. I didn't think he was anything special last season in this role, he looks even worse now.

I was another who thought he was good. The number of tackles and interceptions was again highest in the team. He wasnt great with the ball, but you could hardly blame him for the pressing. That is under instruction same as it has been all season. 

3 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

No, we would have lost today if it wasn't for the keeper. I don't know how anybody can watch that performance from Kante and say that if it wasn't for him, we would have lost. He was awful, possibly our worst player on the pitch today.

He was being outmuscled, his touch was poor, his passing in attacking areas was poor, he was leaving holes for them to run into, his tackling was poor, he was weak, his decision making in defence and attack was poor, he was running all over the place like a headless chicken and easy to pass through. He wasn't putting pressure on players at the right time, he was just running at them and making it easy for them to play a simple pass. I couldn't think of a single thing Kante did right today. His form has been terrible since his return from injury, he doesn't look anywhere near as good as he used to be. I didn't think he was anything special last season in this role, he looks even worse now.

Let's just forget that without Kante we were 3rd place in the league and steamrolling all the sides we are massively struggling against now... 

Clearly it was Kepa who made the difference today. 

8 minutes ago, Albert_The_Dog said:

Too average in attack again! I don’t think teams fear Tammy, Pulisic or Willian, we need to invest in a top quality striker. Just my opinion.

 

They scored a combined 21 EPL goals so far this season.

How many teams have a front 3 with that many goals?

Just now, Spiller86 said:

I was another who thought he was good. The number of tackles and interceptions was again highest in the team. He wasnt great with the ball, but you could hardly blame him for the pressing. That is under instruction same as it has been all season. 

With the amount of times he was charging at players, he should have been the highest for tackles and interceptions. But stats don't tell you the whole story. From what I was seeing, his tackles weren't really breaking up attacks, they were just 50 50's that ended bobbling around and back into Brighton's possession. Nothing was clean from Kante, none of his tackles and interceptions were resulting in us winning the ball back and breaking forward in attack. He looks weak, and he looks easy to play against this season, something that you could never say about Kante two seasons ago.